1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a plastic drawer having a transverse partition detachably connected to and supported by two longitudinal side walls.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Drawers and compartments for office furniture mainly intended to accommodate card files, trays or partitions must have a high strength and should be fully operative even under extremely high loads. These requirements can be met only with difficulty if such furniture elements are made of plastics, such as modified polystyrene, because the required stiffness and fracture strength cannot be ensured by a relatively small wall thickness alone so that special structural designs must be adopted mainly to prevent a deflection of the side walls and of the bottom. An inward deflection of the side walls under a certain load will be detrimental to the guidance of the drawer and may substantially obstruct the handling of various items contained in the drawer. A substantial deflection of the bottom under load may render the drawer inoperative because the downwardly deflected bottom of a drawer which is being moved may wipe on the contents of the next lower drawer and may push part of said contents along or may cause the drawer to be seized. If the deflection under load persists for a certain time, the plastic having a low restoring force will exhibit a cold flow so that the drawer will be permanently deformed.
In order to avoid such difficulties, it is known to provide such drawers with stiffening ribs or bars, mainly on the side walls. In some cases these ribs or bars are merely reinforcements but in other cases they also assist the guidance of the drawer (Austrian Patent Specification No. 301,787). It is also known to provide the longitudinal side walls of drawers with reinforcing and guiding metal rails (Austrian Patent Specification No. 319,518) and to increase the strength of the drawer by the provision of double side walls (German Utility Models Nos. 81 27 807 and 79 31 270). But all previous proposals outlined hereinbefore are concerned only with the stiffening of the side walls or with the stiffening of said side walls and the guidance of the drawer. On the other hand, the known measures outlined hereinbefore do not result in a substantial improvement of the strength of the bottom of the drawer and any ribs which have been provided on the bottom can have only restricted dimensions so that they are entirely inadequate.